The Oscars begin in just a little more than an hour and to prepare for Hollywood’s biggest night, here’s a little bit of interesting Academy Award trivia to tide you over until the show starts.
- Legend has it that the Oscars got their nickname from Margaret Herrick, an executive director at the Academy in the 1930s. When she first saw the golden statuette, she stated that it resembled her Uncle Oscar Pierce.
- The Oscar statue weighs 6.75 pounds and stands at 13.5 inches tall.
- In the history of the Academy Awards, only one person named Oscar has actually won the award. Oscar Hammerstein for Best original song in 1941 for Lady Be Good and 1945 for State Fair.
- 3 films are tied for the record of winning the most Academy Awards. Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King all won eleven awards.
- Walt Disney is the record holder for most overall Academy Award wins with 22 over the course of his lifetime.
- John Williams, Best Original Score nominee for Lincoln, is the 2nd most nominated person in the history of the awards with 48 Oscar nominations. Behind only Walt Disney himself who had 64.
- Katharine Hepburn has won the most Best Actress awards, winning four golden statuettes (1932, 1967, 1968, 1981) over the course of 49 years.
- Eight different actors share the honor of winning the most Best Actor Academy Awards: two each for Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Fredric March, Dustin Hoffman, Sean Penn, and Tom Hanks.
- Meryl Streep has the most overall Academy Award nominations for acting with 17 total nominations, yet only three wins (two for Best Actress and one for Best Support Actress).
- John Ford holds the record for the most Academy Awards for Best Director, winning four times for films The Informer (1936), The Grapes of Wrath (1941), How Green Was My Valley (1942), and The Quiet Man (1953).
- The longest acceptance speech ever given at an Academy Awards show was given by Greer Garson in 1942. Although the show wasn’t televised back then, when she gave her speech for winning the Best Actress award for her role in Mrs. Miniver, many sources claim the speech went on for 5 ½ – 7 minutes.
- The youngest person to ever win a standard Academy Award (Shirley Temple won an honorary Academy Award at the age of 5) was Tatum O’Neal who won the Best Supporting Actress award in1974 for Paper Moon. She was 10 years old at the time.
- Amour is the 5th foreign language film to ever be nominated for Best Picture. The other four were Z, Life Is Beautiful, The Emigrants, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
- For whatever it’s worth, John Wayne is the tallest person to ever win an Academy Award for acting standing at 6’4” (True Grit, 1969).
